Stephen attended Roberto-Venn in the Spring 2000 class. After graduating he returned home to the Bay Area and landed a Job working for the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. Over his 9 plus year span he worked his way through each department learning every aspect of steel string guitar construction. The last 4 years saw his previous training put to good use working as the Service Manager and learning all the various techniques used to repair guitars and learning what tension and abuse did to an acoustic guitar over time.

Over the years he also worked for Rick Turner doing various production work and final assembly as well as working with Addam Stark, helping him with his guitar finishing business and more recently Jeff Traugott. He worked with Jeff on his fanned fret 7 string electric guitar for Charlie Hunter.

“Some people can go a lifetime without finding something that gives their life meaning. When I strung up my first guitar I knew what that meaning was. Building guitars is the only time I’m actually free and my goal is to help create a similar feeling for the player and the audience. There is a lot of love, passion, dedication, sacrifice, and long hours involved in what I do. It’s also very emotional at times. It can be hard to encompass every action and thought involved but I can sum it up with this: The meaning of the word Catharsis is an emotional release usually through art or music. That’s what building guitars is for me.”  ~ Stephen Strahm